


The Connection Between Stars

by Veggieheist



Series: The Connection Between Stars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Electric Feels, Eventual Smut?, F/M, Fluff, Food Issues, Force Bond (Star Wars), Galactic politics, Nightmares, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Renperor, Slow Burn, Some Legends references, That tension tho, The Force, The Knights of Ren and their Dubious Morality, The Military Industrial Complex, all aboard the pain train until then, it's not the focus of the story but it comes up, slight trigger warning for any eating disorder sufferers or survivors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 06:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13781598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veggieheist/pseuds/Veggieheist
Summary: Separated once again by the vastness of the galaxy and the dualities of their convictions, Rey and Kylo find themselves connected by their force bond in their most vulnerable time yet.But as time goes on and a rising power threatens to keep the galaxy in a perpetual imbalance, Rey and Kylo must figure out how to navigate their warring sides in order to finally be together--and find a way to survive the coming storm.





	1. The Connection Between Stars

**Author's Note:**

> So I first posted this on fanfiction and never got around to posting it on here until now. I have 5 chapters done so far, but instead of posting them all right now I'm going to post 1 and 2 together and then 3, 4, and 5 on consecutive days. Please note that chapters 1 and 2 were meant to be connected one-shots, but then my muse hit and I decided to keep it going. So chapters 3 and on have a connecting plot and story arc that will lead to lots more Reylo interactions (of varying fluff, angst, and eventual sexiness).  
> Let me know what you think! :)

Rey awoke slowly in her bed, feeling a familiar sense of otherness drown out the noise of the ship around her. In her grogginess she assumed they'd finally landed and docked, otherwise why couldn't she hear the usual hum of the engines? But then a second later the rest of her brain woke up and she opened her eyes to see one Ben Solo lying asleep not a foot away from her on the bed that seemed much smaller when she'd gone to sleep earlier.

The damn bond again. It picked a hell of a time to connect them.

She stiffened but didn't otherwise move, afraid to wake him. Her eyes flickered to where her still-broken lightsaber and a small blaster sat on a shelf near the door. She called the blaster to her and hid it beneath her blanket. She wasn't taking any chances should Kylo wake and become violent with her. Their last conversation through the force had ended in a heated yelling match, with the man actually _grabbing_ her arm as she turned from him in fury, trying to end their pointless argument about whom would be turning whom to what side of the force. They had already established they could touch each other through the force, so what was it to say they couldn't hurt each other, or even kill?

Yeah, she definitely wasn't taking any chances. Even if she knew Ben Solo would never hurt her, the part of him that was still Kylo Ren was all uncontrolled rage and violence.

Plus she was still recovering from a nasty blaster wound to her neck. She'd gotten distracted in battle when Finn had almost been blown up by a stray bomb, and a trooper had taken advantage of the opening. The field medic managed to apply bacta to it and save her from lethal blood loss, but she was still feeling a little weak and the phantom pain from the memory of the battle tickled at the edge of her senses. All that was left physically was a light scar, but in reality she'd almost died and that weighed heavily on her mind. She needed to be stronger, quicker on her feet. She couldn't let anything distract her. People's lives depended on her.

A deep sigh from the sleeping man drew her attention back. He was lying on his side, his massive form and broad shoulders taking up so much space in the closet-sized room (although, Rey couldn't tell if it was her imagination or did it seem like there was a hazy image of another room beyond him? It was like she was looking at her room through a pane of transparisteel that had a different image faintly reflected on it.). His dark hair framed his head like a black halo, a few wayward wisps across his eyes trembling with every exhale. He wasn't wearing a tunic, _again_ , much to her slight embarrassment, and his skin was a soft grey in the hazy light of the tinted viewport at her back.  
_  
You could just kill Kylo right now and end the war._ A voice whispered in her mind. _It would save your friends and the galaxy._

But no, she knew it wouldn't. Someone would step up in his place and then they'd still have a war and she'd have a gaping hole in her soul where her connection to Ben used to be.

Rey dragged her thoughts from that dark place and continued to observe Ben's sleeping form. He looked so peaceful, but she could see the paleness of his skin and the circles beneath his eyes. He was still struggling with himself. Still struggling against the light she knew he had in him.

She sighed sadly. "Oh, Ben…." It was barely a whisper, but the man's eyes flew open at the sound, and suddenly they were each trapped in the other's surprised gaze.  
His lips parted as his eyes swept over her face, at their hands lying so close on the bed between them, her bare arms, and then lingered on the faint scar on her neck.

"Rey." He breathed. He reached out towards her neck and she immediately grabbed his wrist to stop him, shuddering as a humming current passed between their touching skin. The sudden thought that he was trying to strangle her dissipated when he murmured "You were hurt."

She frowned, and he appeared to come to his senses and tugged his hand back. She released him, slightly relieved to not have that humming swirl of connection that always seemed to happen whenever they touched. Her hand tingled and she fisted the blanket near her pillow, pulling it up a little higher. She was wearing a tunic, but she still felt naked lying in bed next to his much less clothed form.

She scoffed. "No thanks to your troopers. Tell me, was it really worth the effort of trying to take that city when your army killed most of the people and burned half the buildings down in their efforts?"

He scowled, but his eyes were still raking over her exposed upper body, going back to the scar on her neck more than once. He was obviously ignoring her, and that annoyed her to no end. He couldn't just keep running away from what he was doing with the First Order— what he was destroying in his efforts to restore order to the galaxy.

"Well?" She probed, not at all finding it ridiculous that she was trying to goad a man into another fight while both of them were underclothed and lying next to each other in bed.

His eyes snapped to hers once again. "You were hurt." He repeated and Rey rolled her eyes but he continued, his voice heavy with some emotion she didn't want to identify. "You almost died. I—" He swallowed, jaw clenching and nose flaring as he breathed. His tone was hard. "I felt your life-force ebbing away. You need to be more careful."

She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, so you actually _don't_ want me dead? You know I wouldn't have to be more careful if you would just put an end to this whole bloody war in the first place."

His eyes blazed. "None of this would be happening if you'd just—" He ground his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his palm to his brow as he turned to lay on his back. Rey could feel a small pain behind her eyes and knew somehow he must be having headache. _The bond._ She wondered if there were things he could sense about her and tried not to let her nervousness of their rather vulnerable proximities project. She buried it beneath her annoyance instead.

They laid like that for a moment, silent except for their breathing, the air thick with the frustration that rolled off of the both of them like palpable waves.

He sighed, breaking the quiet with the low timber of his voice. "Just be more careful."

"Why?"

He propped himself up on his elbow, exposing more of his toned chest and abdomen and giving himself some advantage as he loomed over her. "Because when I felt you bleeding out it felt like I was dying too!" He was angry, but there was also something else seeping through in his expression as he looked down at her. His voice was choked with it as he softly implored her. "Please, Rey…"

"Don't." She whispered, curling in on herself slightly as if it could protect from the sound of his voice.

"Don't what?"

She closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them they were lit with indignation. She propped herself up on her own elbow, mirroring him, although he was so much bigger than her that she still had to look up at him. "Don't pretend to give a damn about me when you're the reason I'm in danger in the first place. If you'd just stop giving in to the darkness and accept the light within you—"

"You really don't know when to give up—"

"—that we both know is there, we could _be together_."

His eyes burned holes into her own, flickered to her lips for a fraction of a second and then back up. He leaned forward slightly and it took everything in her not to lean away in turn.

"You're right. We could be together. But you ran away."

She wanted to smack him but kept her grip on the blanket.

"Because you've gone down a path that I cannot follow, Ben!" A shiver ran through her as a wave of deja vu came over her. She shook it off. "Don't you see that the dark side has only ever brought you pain and loneliness?"

He shook his head. "No, the people I thought I could trust and rely on are what have brought me pain and loneliness." The accusation in his eyes made her look down, guilt and sadness twisting painfully in her chest.

She breathed, trying to steady her emotions. "I'm sorry that you feel like I've abandoned you, Ben." She looked up, pushing as much honesty and sincerity into her voice and expression as she could. "But know that I'm still always here, and I still want to help you."

His jaw tensed, eyes hard. "No. You left me. You abandoned me after I chose you over everything. I defied my master, _killed_ my master, for _you_ , Rey. So that we could be together. And you ran from me when it came time to sacrifice in turn."

Her voice rose with her anger. "My friends were being attacked! The Resistance was in danger! I couldn't sacrifice their _lives_!"

He shook his head, face stormy as he looked away. "Still holding on to your weaknesses."

"My friends don't make me weak, Ben. My love for the people I care about makes me stronger— stronger than the dark side will ever make you."

He looked like he was going to actually strangle her this time, but instead he just glared daggers at her for a few moments and then suddenly stiffly laid back down, turning his back to her as he pulled the blanket up.

She frowned at the expanse of his back, confused. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He snapped. "I'm tired. I haven't slept well in weeks, and I'm done with this conversation. So either shoot me in the back with that blaster hidden by your side or let me sleep until this vision ends."

She froze, slightly embarrassed that he'd found out about her weapon and incensed that he was just writing her off like that. _The nerve of this guy!_

She opened her mouth to yell at him some more but a glance at the chrono on her wall told her that she should probably try to sleep too. They'd been woken up in the middle of the night by their bond, and she knew she could use the rest too. A wave of exhaustion hit her, and she remembered that she was technically still anemic from the blaster wound. They'd given her a packet of some foul-tasting powder she was to mix with water that would help her body make more blood, but taking it would require her to somehow climb over Ben and she was not going to do that.

She huffed in annoyance and resignation, pulling out the blaster and turning as she laid down so her back was to him. She placed the weapon on the sill of the viewport and closed her eyes.

There was no way she was going to fall asleep with him still there, but if he was going to give her the cold shoulder then she was going to return the favor. The connection would probably end soon, although it had already gone on longer than most of their other ones.

After a few minutes of tense silence where they still remained connected she heard him move and she stiffened.

"Rey?"

"What?" She grumbled. When he didn't reply she looked over her shoulder to see him on his side facing her again.

His eyes were searching her, something resembling concern glinting in the half light.

"The wound on your neck…?"

Her stony expression softened. She rolled to face him, tucking her hands beneath her pillow.

She sighed after a moment of contemplation. "I'm fine. Luckily the medic was close enough by that I didn't completely bleed out." Her voice lowered. "It was a pretty close call though. They patched me up, gave me medicine for the blood loss. I'll be back to full health in a day or two." She shouldn't be admitting her weakened state to him, but he seemed so genuinely concerned for her. Surely he wouldn't take advantage of her, especially since he'd admonished her for getting hurt in the first place.

He looked at her for a moment as if he wasn't sure he could trust her word. Then his hand came up slowly, slow enough to give her time to stop him again if she wanted to. She looked at it but made no move to grab his wrist again. His dark eyes were on her own, sensing her, and when she didn't stop him he let his fingers slowly push the hair obscuring her scar back behind her neck. Her skin burned and tingled with electricity where the pads of his fingers trailed over the healed wound. A heat bloomed throughout her limbs and she was grateful for the semi-darkness because she knew her face was aflame. She'd never been touched with such intimate gentleness before. Such wary reverence.

He took careful notice of her scar, brushing his thumb over it as if he could wipe the mark away. She eyed his own scar, the one she'd given him in that dark place on that dark planet all those months ago. She found herself hesitatingly reaching over and placing two fingers on the end of it where it curled on his chest. His lips parted with a small woosh of breath, stilling his hand at her pulse. His eyes were on her face but she traced her gaze along the scar and followed with her fingers, stopping when she reached his cheek.

She realized as she looked at the damage her saber had done that he had never said anything to her about it. Had never promised to exact the same thing on her, or seem embarrassed or self conscious of it. It was almost like it wasn't there to him. Like it didn't matter. But why? Why had he not been angry with her for marking his face like this? For almost taking his eye? For almost killing him?

"Ben." She whispered, not trusting her voice. "I'm sorry—."

His hand left her neck to wrap around hers and she thought he was going to push it away, but instead he held her hand to his cheek. His eyes fluttered closed and the hum of their connection sent goosebumps down her arm. She could see the same happening across his skin.

"Don't be." He whispered back. His eyes slowly opened, a haunted look making his demeanor almost emaciated. "I deserve far worse."

This wasn't Kylo Ren she was talking to. This was Ben Solo, remembering all the terrible things he'd done in his life. Remembering how he'd killed his own father.

Rey wasn't sure she'd ever be able to forgive him for that, even if he was remorseful. But when she thought back to the torture Snoke had inflicted upon her, and remembered that Ben had been his victim for years, she had to wonder if he hadn't already paid for his sins ten times over. Maker only knew what tortures he'd been put through as Snoke's apprentice. She imagined any failure was met with some horrible punishment of the mind, and she was at once glad that Master Skywalker had not treated her that way.

But the old Jedi wasn't entirely perfect either. Luke's moment of weakness all those years ago had led them all to this after all.

"Perhaps." She said simply. "Perhaps you do. But…" She bit her lip. "Your life has been full of so much pain and darkness. And _loneliness_. Aren't you tired of it all? Don't…don't you deserve to be happy too?" _With me, on the side of the light?_

"No." He murmured and released her hand, fists clenching on the blanket. She pulled her limb back safely to her chest, closing her fingers around the echoing warmth and electricity from his skin. "I don't believe I will ever feel happy again." He paused, conflicted emotions swirling around him. Rey kept quiet, feeling that there were words yet he wanted to say.

"But if I was," He continued softly, his face open and vulnerable, searching her eyes, "I have a feeling you would be there for it." Rey gave him a soft smile, her heart weeping in the face of a dream that may very well never come to pass if he should stay on his dark path.

"For now I will settle for this." He sighed, eyes closing. "These small moments of peace that only ever happen when I am with you."

Rey snorted, and Ben's eyes flew open, guarded.

"Last time wasn't so peaceful." She mumbled wryly, remembering the panic she'd felt when he'd grabbed her arm and her surroundings had warped. For a moment she'd been terrified he was somehow going to pull her into his side of the connection, but then she'd wrenched herself free and the vision had ended.

"No, it wasn't." He agreed, features turning into something self-deprecating. Rey could feel his scorn directed at himself and felt compelled to make him stop, but didn't know how.

"I didn't mean to hurt your arm." He softly confessed.

"You didn't." Rey lied, and the glint in his eye told her he knew it.

"I felt the ache, Rey."

She scowled, not wanting to seem like she's always the one hurting their connection.

"Well you need to stop hitting things with your fists. I can feel it in my own whenever you go on a rampage."

His jaw tensed as his face clouded. "The change in leadership has not been going smoothly. But they will all submit eventually."

"And what if they don't? What if they find out you're the one who killed Snoke? Don't think that I've at all forgotten that you painted a giant target on my back when you told them it was my doing."

Again Ben glanced away from her glare, a look of thinly masked regret and sadness causing him to look younger than his 30 years. How was it a man ten years older than her still seemed like such a lost child?

But still, her words were the truth. He'd been angry at her for getting hurt but he hadn't made it very easy for her to not get hurt by making her out to be the one who'd assassinated the Supreme Leader. Now the entire First Order was out for her head with a ruthlessness that was terrifying.

"I can't tell them the truth." Ben admitted quietly, shamefully. "It would cause chaos in the ranks. A Civil War, even. No doubt General Hux would lead the charge against me, the traitorous snake."

"Technically you're the traitor." She reminded him, and his eyes found hers once more. There was no animosity though, just an acceptance of the truth.

"Yes, I am." He murmured, and Rey remembered that day in the rain on Ach-To when she'd called him a monster and he'd said the same thing. Perhaps his lowly opinion of himself was one of the reasons he couldn't accept the light within. She needed to remind him of that.

"But you saved my life." She added. "So I think it balances out a little bit." She tried to smile reassuringly but he didn't seem to return the sentiment. If anything he grew more serious.

"I would do it again in a heartbeat." He intoned with a blazing conviction that made her whole body warm. His jaw worked, as if chewing on words that were difficult to say.

Finally his resolve hardened and he spoke softly, achingly. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." Her heart clenched at the confession. "I only wish I wasn't the worst thing that happened to you."

"You're not." She whispered back, tears welling in her eyes from some sudden billowing of emotion within her. She reached across and grabbed his fist. He went still as she needled her fingers into the cracks, opening his palm and sliding her digits between his, locking their hands together. The force gusted around them for a moment as the connection hummed anew and their emotions rand wild, then a deep sense of peace and calm settled over them like a warm blanket. Within that the force felt content. Balanced.

In that moment two lonely children found strength and belonging in each other, and for just that moment everything was alright.

There was no First Order, no Resistance, no looming death threats, no past, no future—just the two of them, locked together by their hands and their heavy gazes. It was like that night in the hut on Ach-To multiplied by a thousand. By ten-thousand.

Ben's lips parted, the awe in his dark eyes from looking at their joined hands replaced with a deep longing when he looked up at her lips. Rey flushed at the heated intention, her heart pounding.

"Rey," he said, and it was like a caress. He began moving, as if to prop himself up and lean over her, as if he was going to kiss her, and she knew that she couldn't let him do that, but by Maker did she want to in that moment, but the decision was taken from her when a loud noise echoed from across the connection and Ben jerked his head around as if seeing something, and as she released his hand in a hurry he disappeared.

The hum silenced. The connection receded to the back of her mind where it waited. She felt the emptiness though. Not only in her still-warm hand, but in her heart and soul. She didn't realize how out of sync she felt normally until he was there to help put things back in order.

Tears dripped down the sides of her face as she rolled to her back, gripping the blanket at her sides with white-knuckled fists.  
_  
Oh, Ben, why can't you just accept the light so we can end this torture?_


	2. Even Magnets Repel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is an exploration of what happens when two touch-starved people meet, and how things can get out of hand quickly. (Or, Rey has a mild panic attack when experiencing an unexpected full-body spoon from a needy Ben.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/21 Edit: After writing the wonderful behemoths that were chapters 4 and 5 and then re-reading this chapter I've decided I will be rewriting ch 2 at some point. I feel that in comparison with all my other chapters it is the weakest, and I know I can make it so much better. Just fyi ;)  
> But by all means, enjoy this original draft~

The next time the bond caught them unawares, the two force users were once again sleeping in their respective quarters. Rey woke up slowly with the feeling of something running down her bare arm, tickling her into semi-consciousness. She was just going to ignore it and go back to sleep but the familiar electricity left in it's wake the second time she felt it had her fully conscious in an instant. She turned her head to see Ben staring at her with wide-eyed attentiveness, his hand frozen a hair's breadth from her skin.

"Ben?" She murmured, sleep making her voice crack. "Wh—How long…?"

His dark eyes looked away briefly. "Not too long. I didn't mean to wake you." His hand made one more pass down her arm (she suppressed a shiver and scowled) and then he retreated, clenched fist pressing to his bare chest.

_Maker, this man never seemed to wear clothes anymore,_ She thought as a blush crept up her cheeks. She averted her eyes, trying to make it look nonchalant even though his sharp gaze didn't miss a thing and his lips quirked into a faint smirk. As she tried to focus on anything other than the wall of muscle and skin a foot from her face she noticed that she didn't recognize any of the room behind Ben. In fact, as she looked around, she realized wasn't in her room at all.

_She wasn't in her room._

Gone were the telltale signs of her 'closet nest' as Poe so graciously described it one day with a raised brow at her odd bits of curio. Her scavenged parts for her partially-reconstructed lightsaber, the box in the corner where she stored bits of food (a lingering habit from her years spent on Jakku), her meager wardrobe hung haphazardly from wherever they could— All gone. The only familiar thing she could see was Ben, but it wasn't all that reassuring to see him.

She definitely remembered falling asleep in her bed, because she'd been tossing and turning in anger for the better part of the night due to the outright snubbing of her abilities by some of the Resistance council members. She may be hardly trained, but that didn't mean she was useless. She had power— _a lot_ of power. How dare they make her feel otherwise?

In spite of her insistence that she had more to offer than they gave her credit for, waking up in what she assumed was Ben's room on his ship made her feel incredibly powerless.

Somehow she'd been pulled to his side of the connection without her realizing it, and she couldn't see a way back. _What if she couldn't get back?_ Her throat tightened. A smaller, yet darker voice whispered, _What if this was Kylo's doing? What if he had somehow transported her to his ship, and was going to make her pay for rejecting his offer?_

Panic clawed it's way around her heart as adrenaline exploded in her system. Ben must have caught the flighty look in her eye or felt her intention to run in their bond because the next thing she knew he was wrapping his arms around her torso and pulling her back flush against his front. The resulting connective hum vibrated the air around them before settling into a semi-calm pulse.

"Shh shh shh, wait." He pleaded, voice tight, his words ruffling the hair at her neck.

Rey stiffened, breath held in her lungs.

"What are you doing?" She whispered nervously.

"Don't go." He urged. "Just, calm down. You're not fully here. Look."

Her eyes darted around, but she couldn't see anything familiar. This wasn't her ship. _This wasn't her room._

Her anxiety rose, and Ben's arms tightened minutely around her, his legs coming up to press against the backs of her thighs.

"Rey, calm down and _focus_." He implored, frustration coloring his voice.

She stopped struggling and tried to do as he said, evening her breaths and settling the panic. There was a distant calmness that brushed from some far-off place in her mind, and she used it as a building block to construct a sense of peace within herself. A sense of balance. She opened her eyes, not fully aware of when she'd closed them, and saw the familiar viewport before her, the blaster still resting on the sill from the last time they'd talked several cycles before.

The wall and viewport were hazy around the edges where it met Ben's space, but they were there.

She let out a shaky breath of relief, her body sagging.

"Do you see it?" He questioned quietly near her ear. A shiver ran down her spine and she nodded.

After a moment Ben's arms loosened, but didn't move. After sucking in a lungful of air Rey took full inventory of their positions and her eyes widened, heart pounding. His left arm had snaked beneath her left side near her armpit, forearm pressed across her chest as his hand gripped her right shoulder. His right arm was draped over her waist, hand tucked between the bed and her ribcage just a few inches shy of her breast. In fact, if he should move his thumb at all, surely he could brush up against it.  


The tightness of his embrace left her completely flush against him from the top of her spine to the backs of her knees. Thank _Maker_ he was wearing pants, because if he hadn't been she probably would have force blasted them apart without any hesitation at incurring injury to herself or to him.

A heat unlike anything she'd ever felt before—even on Jakku, and that was saying something—lit her body on fire from head to toe, centering and concentrating near her groin.

_What the hell was this?_  
  
It was intense. This sudden electric feeling of _want_.

And to make matters worse, she could feel Ben's chaotic emotions pressing against her mind too. Darkness, anxiety, frustration, desperation, relief, longing, hurt, and something buried beneath it all that _burned_.

Every hair on her body, every nerve in her skin was buzzing at every place their bodies were connected, and Rey's brain couldn't seem to keep up. She felt herself start to shake—just small shivers at first but larger quakes soon enough—and unable to stop.

"Are you cold?" He asked, breath on her ear and the rumble of his chest at her back.

"No." She whispered. _Quite the complete opposite_ , she thought.

"Then why are you trembling?" She didn't answer, not knowing how to. "Are you afraid of me?" His voice low, a hesitation underlying it. It was silly, really, that he would ask that with such a sad lilt, being Kylo Ren, the physical manifestation of death and destruction for so many years. The better question was 'why _not_ be afraid of Kylo Ren?' but Rey knew this wasn't Kylo holding her. It wasn't Kylo making her tremble. It was Ben.

Or maybe it was both.

She felt a combination of frustration and embarrassment at the fact that she couldn't seem to stop herself from her tremors. She'd never been held like this before, by anyone, much less a shirt-less man with whom she shared a force bond, and it seemed her body just didn't know what to do with the sensory overload.

"No, I'm not afraid." She answered after another quake. She could sense that he didn't believe her, and the conflicting feelings that emerged from him from the belief that she was afraid of him made her heart pound ever harder. She sensed that a part of him was saddened by her fear, but another part relished in it.

"I'm not afraid of you." She repeated with a slightly stronger voice. "I just…" She hesitated, and the lull in her fortitude allowed the shock and embarrassment from the overwhelming engulfment of his life-force (and body) right up against her own to fill her once more. She felt a knot form in her throat and tears prick at her eyes. Maker, she didn't want to cry in front of him but the cacophony of emotions welling up inside her needed a release. She tried to swallow past the knot, to at least keep her voice normal. 

"I just…" but it didn't work. Her voice broke, betraying her. "…feel _very_ uncomfortable right now Ben. It's _too much_." She stifled a sob as she tried to remove his arms from around her middle and slide away, needing to break the connection, to return to her own space in her own bed, but his arms were like a cage around her.

"Please, Ben, please." She gasped, pulling at his arms and trying to arch her back away from his chest. "Please let me go. It's too much, Ben, it's _too much_!"

She felt like she was sinking, sinking into a pit of darkness and heady feelings she didn't want to feel. She knew it was his mind, and she was terrified.

"Ben!"

Finally something gave way within his side of the connection. His mind snapped out of the cloud of the burning and longing it had settled in and pushed it away hastily.

"Shh okay, okay." He released her, allowing her to shimmy forward and put distance between their scalding bodies. He kept a hold on her upper arm with his right hand, the other snagging her tunic near her lower back. She jolted when she felt his forehead touch the spot between her shoulder blades. His breath was hot on her spine even through her top.

"Just, please, please don't go." He whispered fervently. "Please don't leave me now."

She breathed in deeply, trying to remember her meditation in the hopes it would calm her anxious nerves and stop her shaking.

"I won't." She whispered hoarsely after a moment. "But…"

When she didn't continue his thumb caressed her arm soothingly.

"But what?"

She swallowed once more, trying to squash the feelings of shame and embarrassment down. Her voice was tiny as she answered, needing him to understand why, and she could feel him tilt his head to hear her.

"I…I've never lain with anyone like this before, Ben. Not ever." He stiffened, the full meaning of her words stifling the air, and she hurried to continue before she lost her nerve. "I mean, maybe it shouldn't be such a big deal, but you're not wearing anything _again_ , and the bond just gets so…so _overwhelming_ when we t-touch so much, and even though I can see my room I'm not _in_ my room, and I just feel like I'd rather be locked in a room with a rathtar than be drowning in whatever intense thing _that_ was—"

"Why are you crying?" He asked hoarsely.

Rey wiped at her tears angrily. "I'm _not_ crying you _kriffing idiot_!"

"Rey," he sighed, his thumb resuming it's caressing motions as she buried her face in her hands, shoulders quaking with suppressed tears. "Shhh Rey, Rey…it's fine. This is fine. I don't…" he took a shaking breath in, "I don't want you to feel… _inadequate_ …because of your lack of—of _this_."

Rey let out a wet laugh, devoid of humor. "Too late. But I appreciate the sentiment." Her voice was laced with sarcasm but the truth was she honestly felt appreciative. This was the most reassuring he'd ever attempted to be with her since that night they'd promised each other they weren't alone anymore. It amazed her that he was even trying after everything. Perhaps their last bedtime bond vision had made an impression on him after all.

He was silent, brooding over something. Rey wondered if it was such a good idea to have told him the level of her inexperience, and knew if he ever thought her childlike she must seem like such a child even more so now. A child in the ways of the force and in the ways of intimacy.

She really was powerless.

His voice broke through her sullen thoughts.

"I've never lain with anyone like this either." He confessed with a low rumble, and Rey stopped breathing.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. There's never been room in my life for something like this. Not as a Jedi, not as a Knight of Ren." Rey let his words sink in, realizing that once again they had more in common than she'd thought. She'd just assumed that, due to his age he would have had _some_ experience when it came to _certain relations_ with the opposite sex. He certainly was handsome enough-he could have anyone he wanted. Apparently she'd assumed wrong. It made her feel less deficient, although her nervousness did not dissipate.

"If you really can't stand it," he said morosely after a long moment when she didn't reply, beginning to pull his hand away from her arm. In a heartbeat panic twisted in her chest. She felt the wanting to be as far from him as possible conflict with the wanting to bury herself in the bond via his warm body. But ultimately she knew she didn't want to sever this moment no matter how tumultuous it was making her feel. She quickly grabbed his hand with her left one before it could make a full retreat.

"Wait." She murmured briskly. He stilled. She felt the echo of anxious hopefulness in the bond. She carefully laced her fingers with his, placing their joined hands on the side of her ribcage, on top of the blanket. And just so that no other parts of their skin touched by accident, she moved her right arm forward, tucking her hand beneath her head.

She heard his breath become heavy, his fingers flexing at the new current of electric connection. She gently squeezed back.

As they lay there breathing, the bond which had been sloshing their emotions around like waves in a storm finally began to calm. Rey's shaking reduced down to just a few quakes and quivers, and Ben's clawing feelings of desperation abated into wary contentment. Rey wiped the remains of her tears from her face and sniffled. She could feel something coming from Ben but wasn't sure what it was.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She probed hesitantly.

"Talk about what?"

"The reason you needed me to stay?"

He was silent, but she could feel embarrassment, self-loathing, and old anxiety coming off of him like a pulse.

"It's nothing." He finally mumbled. Then, after she kept silent, he admitted, "Just a stupid dream."

"A nightmare?" She prodded gently.

"Don't be stupid." He denied hotly, as if insulted. "Knights of Ren don't get nightmares."

She rolled her eyes but squeezed his fingers in a way she hoped was reassuring.

"You don't have to get all uppity and deny it, O Great Master of Ren. Everyone has nightmares."

He kept quiet, although she could tell he had become tense. She felt around the force for their bond and tried to send him her reassurance and trust. She didn't know how successful she was being, but she thought it couldn't hurt to try.

After a few deep breaths from Ben, she felt him faintly increase the pressure of his forehead against her back.

"I dreamt of my father." He finally quietly confessed, and Rey felt an anguish from him she'd only ever gotten a glimpse at before. The full enormity of it was heartbreaking.  
"Of the moment I ignited my saber through his heart, and the look of…the look on his face…." He swallowed audibly, and when next he spoke his voice shook.

"I've dreamt it before, too many times to count. Watching him fall, feeling none of the dark power Snoke had promised I'd feel once I rid myself of Han Solo's influence. Realizing his death had changed nothing. _Nothing_." His grip on her fingers had tightened painfully but Rey ignored it, focusing instead on making sure her lingering feelings of hate towards Kylo Ren didn't bleed through their bond. It wouldn't help any. Ben needed her strength and compassion, not her anger.

He took in a strangled breath. "And then my dream changed, and it was _you_ I'd plunged my blade into. It was you who looked at me with sadness and betrayal and _pain._ " She realized then that the look in his eyes when she'd first awoken hadn't been attentiveness, but _worry_.

Fear.

"When I woke up, and saw you next to me…" His voice trailed off, unable to articulate the rest. But Rey could feel the memory of what he'd felt—the relief, confusion, longing, anger, and hurt. It all disappeared beneath fresh self-loathing.

"I'm sorry if my disgusting neediness frightened you." He intoned with more than a little bite directed inward.

"It's not disgusting." She argued.

"It's pathetic." He sneered, even as he continued to hold onto her.

She was quiet, contemplating her next words carefully. "So does that make me pathetic too?"

He paused. "What do you mean?"

"Ben…" She sighed, frustrated he was being so thick-headed and anxious about having to confess to her own desperate longing. "However much you think you need me, I need you just as much. Maybe it doesn't seem that way to you now, especially since I didn't go with you when you offered me a place at your side. But you're the only one who really understands what I've gone through, even if you had to plunder my mind without my permission to see it." She heard him sigh, and felt his guilt. She pushed on before he could interrupt her.

"And even though your experiences growing up were different, the feelings and the—the _heartbreak_ are the same, you know? We've chosen different ways to deal with it all, but I still consider you now to be one of my closest friends." Shock pushed at the edge of her mind, and she squeezed his fingers as if to say ' _yes, it's true_.'

"I'll admit that some days I want to hit you over the head with something heavy for being a total dungbeetle, and you've hurt me in ways no normal person could bare, much less a friend, and we've definitely tried to kill each other more than once, but…" she paused, heart a heavy staccato in her chest.

"But I still care for you, Ben Solo. More than I ever thought I would, and more than you probably think you deserve."

She could feel him struggling with an overwhelming emotion, his body tense with the strain of keeping still even though she could feel from him the need to draw their bodies close once more.

"Rey…" he finally panted, his restraint breaking like a dam, and Rey knew she needed to act before she ended up trapped in the vice-like grip of his limbs again. In the moment she felt him decide to forgo their space and breach it, she called upon the force with everything she could muster and directed it towards him, willing his body to freeze.

He grunted in complete surprise, arms suddenly stock-still mid-movement.

Rey immediately felt sweat bead on her skin as she used every ounce of will she had to keep him still. He was incredibly strong, pushing against her power with all his might, causing it to budge.

"Stop that, or I'll leave." She growled. His attempts at breaking her hold paused.

"Are you going to behave?" She ground out between clenched teeth.

Across the bond there was a flicker of annoyance at being talked down to, and then begrudging affirmation.

"Good."

But before she could release him, there was a loud pounding from her room, emphasized with a "REY! YOU AWAKE?"

In her surprise she meant to just jerk away from Ben, but because of her stranglehold on the force she ended up force-blasting them both apart instead. She slammed into the wall by her bed, managing to duck her head just in time to avoid breaking her nose but suffered a dizzying blow to the right side of her forehead, just below her hairline. Her elbow hit the edge of the viewport right on the funnybone, making her whole arm go numb with painful tickles.

She gasped and shuddered, both at the pain and at the wave of energy that dissipated with Ben's disappearance back to his side. After lying still for a moment in a daze, she groaned and slowly turned to lie on her back. Heart pounding, she palmed her aching forehead, wiping the haze of sweat there. Her shoulder, hip, and knee ached with a detached echo, and she knew Ben must have been thrown to the floor on his side.

She could also feel that Ben was furious, and she rushed to assuage his growing feelings of betrayal with a heartfelt apology and explanation before the connection closed.

He all but snarled at her in reply and then the bond went silent.

Her heart fell.

_One step forward, two steps back it seems._

The pounding on the door continued, and she cursed at Finn for being so unyielding. And yet, she was somewhat relieved to be out from Ben's heady force presence. It was incredibly distracting and excitingly terrifying. She didn't know if she wanted less of it or more.

She could still feel the press of him against her back and legs, his arms around her torso. She likely wouldn't be forgetting it for some time.

"REY?"

She groaned again, this time in annoyance, and shakily got up.

"Finn, you had better have a good reason for this…."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting next chapter in part 2 of the series there will be less of a one-shot feel and more multi-chapter story arc feel. You could probably leave things right now if you're not looking for a multi-chapter story, but if you're interested in seeing what I've come up with concerning their character arcs and whatnot, by all means continue to chapter 3 :)


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